Craig Fitzgibbon will hunt down the NRL demanding answers after being left exasperated by some bewildering officiating in Cronulla's costly loss to Manly.
The Sharks threatened to pull off the greatest comeback in premiership history before succumbing 30-26 to the Sea Eagles at PointsBet Stadium on Sunday.
If fullback Will Kennedy had spread the ball left with a slew of teammates out-numbering the Manly defence in the dying stages instead of kicking for himself and failing to score, Sharks star Nicho Hynes would have had a chance to boot his side to victory.
At worst, the thrilling game would have been decided in golden point.
Alas, Cronulla fell agonisingly short of recovering from 30-0 down with 33 minutes remaining.
But with the Sharks losing by four points, they also would have won had wingers Ronaldo Mulitalo and Sione Katoa not controversially been denied two tries during the second-half comeback.
First, the bunker ruled Mulitalo had lost possession of the ball when trying to ground it in the left corner when video replays didn't conclusively show any separation.
Moments later, and even more contentiously, referee Peter Gough ruled forward a pass from Hynes to put Katoa over, prompting a fierce outburst from the Sharks playmaker.
Even most Manly fans would probably agree it was a poor call for the Sharks, and one their usually mild-mannered coach will ask the league to please explain.
"I don't usually complain about officials but I'll have to talk to someone during the week because I don't know what was going on there," Fitzgibbon said after the whistle-happy Gough blew 20 penalties - 11 to Manly - and placed the squeaky-clean Hynes on report for allegedly tripping Sea Eagle Tolutau Koula in the first half.
"If I start raising which issues were hard calls, we'll be here a while," Fitzgibbon added when pressed on which decisions most displeased him.
Regardless, the Sharks' gut-wrenching defeat has left them in a desperate battle to make the finals.
Instead of rising to third on a congested ladder, Cronulla remain sixth with six rounds remaining.
If they lose to table-topping two-time defending premiers Penrith away on Saturday night, the Sharks could drop out of the top eight - a fate that would be almost certainly confirmed if they followed with a third-straight loss to South Sydney the following week.
Little wonder Fitzgibbon batted away questions about pundit Phil Gould branding his team "finals fodder" following a seventh loss from eight matches against top-eight rivals in 2023.
"I'm not worried. We're not in the finals yet," he said.
"Penrith won't let us back in if we start like that (against them). So that's the challenge ahead of us.
"We're looking forward to that. We'll have to dust ourselves off after that one, obviously, and get going because we definitely missed it there. (against Manly)."
